Nebraska Legislature Judiciary Committee Gets Commitment From Constituents
In 1966 Ernie Chambers spoke these words: “The few particulars that make Omaha different from New York are just incidental. The problem exists because white people think they’re better than black people and they want to oppress us and they want us to allow ourselves to be oppressed.” Yesterday an article appeared on NET Nebraska where the same Ernie Chambers, 54 years later, likens the BLM protests to the 1960s. What a remarkable commitment to unchanging injustices.
On June 8th, 2020 I sat, like a good journo, from 10 am (so I was a little late to the party, 9 am start) until Senator Steve Lathrop cited their “need to be out of here by 5” to top off what had grown into an endless indictment of police, government, politics, and white privilege through the lens of pain, suffering, and a call for love. It was a strange intersection of rightful anger, pity for the ignorant, and a call for not only justice and peace, but love in the face of the hatred from what Nixon called the “silent minority.” A group of Senators had come to the Scott Conference Center in Omaha to hear constituents complaints and concerns, and those constituents delivered what I believe to be one of the most stunning rebuttals of conventional, and, ultimately ineffective, police relations in the Omaha community and around the country.
Well over 100 people spoke to frustrations and what the Omaha World Herald called ‘dozens’ of people said and said what we’ve all heard for the past 50 years over and over again. Except yesterday each time we heard it, it was filled with more feeling, more emotion, and more of the caring spirit that simply will not allow the hatred of a “few bad apples” to topple a community. As one of the speakers mentioned, the figure of speech, in it’s entirety goes: “a few bad apples spoils the whole bunch.”
“Stop criminalizing our children,” proclaimed Annette Harris, who went on to give personal anecdotes about the arrest of 3 local men arrested over a legal firearm, the risk of taking the word of a police officer, and telling stories about how her white neighbors have repeatedly harassed her without any help from police. She continued to rail against policing institutions by highlighting a major problem, “if they can’t afford an attorney then they have no chance,” in reference to wrongly accused and provoked black Americans at the hands of police.
The people that spoke up deserve to have their words broadcasted for everyone to see, instead of dying in the ears of politicians who remain as symptoms of the issues at hand. It does not matter in what order these people spoke, because their messages ring true regardless of how long they had to wait to say them. The order and content of these messages has been edited for clarity by me, so you will see the same people speak in multiple sections of this article. Again this is for clarity, to organize and galvanize the thoughts of my fellow citizens that chose to take a stand and speak to those who need to hear.
Folks spoke of the troubling issue of the militarization of police, white folks stood up and spoke about how they could not believe what had happened to them, despite 70 years of black people telling them it was happening to them.
A resident named Bridget summarized the object of the hearing as “not to speak, not to campaign, but to listen,” while addressing the State Senators on the panel. Kaia Phelps spoke straight, and without hesitation when she said, “I’m just going to give you my emotion.” And we got it, all of it, from her and so many others. Lashawn Wooddard, in a pointed, harsh, yet collected criticism asked that people simply “feel me and feel my experience.” Wooddard described what he would refer to only a few moments later as the “pain on people’s backs.”
Folks who knew the history that precedes us quoted John Brown, Frederick Douglas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s recent New York Times op-ed, and Tupac to illustrate this unlearned history; the prejudices we inherit and the injustice and privilege we perpetuate.
Anthony Rogers-Wright stood up and referenced a scene in the 1992 Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson comedy White Men Can’t Jump. He described a scene where the two characters are listening to Jimi Hendrix on a car cassette player. Wesley Snipes character goes on to explain the difference between listening to Jimi Hendrix and hearing Jimi Hendrix. Roger-Wright continued, “prove that you hear us,” because “you should consider yourselves in a state of infamy.”
Another man by the name of Khary (I missed his last name, because I’m dim-witted and I forgot my recording equipment) said it a different way. “The state has done nothing for me,” he said, “I have nothing. The land of the free?” he asked, “I’m a slave in this mug.”
Others fed off of that energy. Local man LaCedric Gipson pointed out that “this is stolen, looted land,” and David Mitchell backed him up. “I live on a plantation,” he said. Mitchell, who went on to describe his first violent and unprovoked encounter with the police at the age of 12, described it as “grown men jumped on my back, arrested me and put me down,” and describes “fighting a mental war” against these institutions.
Local leader Yardie Lexandros, who appeared last week amid protests on KETV, likened it to the Biblical “impossible river,” saying that “we were never meant to be free.” Mr Lexandros describes it without restraint, “we have to accept that white people fear us, but we do not have to accept the consequences of that fear.”
Kearney “Roundtree” Turner put it into historical perspective. “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed 56 years ago…Mitch McConnell is 70 years old, of course they have deeply held prejudices and racist beliefs.” Turner, who has experienced the criminal justice system personally, went on to advocate for fairness. “Give me a fair shot,” he said, “because I can’t win, it’s like this big ol’ bubble of oppression.”
One resident described police as “a genesis of the enforcement of slave labor, an evolved Jim Crow.” While one resident described them as “a public safety hazard.”
Zach Harmon stood and spoke to “things we’ve seen in Omaha for decades.”
Another resident, Jordan Kermoade, used some word play, stating it feels like being “suffocated by the state.” Domonique Liu-Sang, a prominent and vocal local activist called her experience as a protestor at the capital as being “arrested on the steps of justice,” adding “but if Jake Gardner was black, he would have been shot on site.” More on him later. She and others threw around words like “unconstitutional” and “illegal,” when speaking about the actions of Jake Gardner, police, and the criminal justice system.
A woman whose name I regrettably did not catch said, “Lincoln is segregated based on the amount of money you make.” I have lived and worked and played all over the country, and that is the same diagnosis shared by Omaha, Houston, Minneapolis, New York, California and everywhere in between.
Derek Stephens, a witness to James Surlock’s murder last Saturday night by Jake Gardner, called the curfew a symptom of “a police state” and “asinine,” before corroborating the racist rhetoric rumored to be the focal point of the altercation. He said the police shot at his feet, and that amidst the chaos of the moment, he saw an 11 year old get shot in the face with a pepper bullet. “How much does it cost to fly the police helicopter?” He asked before calling it a “waste of money.”
Ms Liu-Sang, the Lincoln activist from above, also gave a stunning and admittedly hard-to-keep-up-with (I’m a slow writer, and again, had forgotten my recording equipment) account of the incident that killed James Surlock. But it goes something like this: she cited local ordinances and laws to prove that Gardner’s gun was, in fact, not licensed. Meaning he was illegally, unlawfully carrying a firearm, especially to be used in the manner that it was. “Him firing on that street was illegal on multiple pretenses,” she concluded.
Phalin Strong stood and pointed out the fact that tear gas is illegal according to the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Nathan Johnson cited how curfew was illegal to begin with, and recalled how (as I do) police forced people to leave the protest last Saturday night while simultaneously arresting and preventing people from leaving the protests, which on multiple accounts (including mine) were peaceful aside from a group of agitators and terrorists known as the Omaha Police.
Among the other direct accusations made by residents of Omaha yesterday were the profit-driven actions of Susan Buffett in acquiring tracts of land in North Omaha. Six people explicitly pointed to Governor Pete Ricketts as being “a racist from a racist family,” as one person put it.
There was an heir of general disgust at what has been happening in their community. LaCedric Gipson at one point quipped, “it would be nice to actually see some cops in here.”
Many blamed Don Kleine and Brenda Beatle as complicit. One man highlighted the injustice of false surrender and false pretenses used by cops, such as kneeling and dancing for photo ops moments before using weapons of war against unarmed civilians. We’ll henceforth call them Photo Cops. There were stories of arrested protestors having the necessary paperwork for release from custody “repeatedly lost.”
Jason Lips gave lip service to the fact that all of the training and “protocols” adopted by police over the past 100 years, with the plethora of Knapp-like Commissions and hearings and committees have not worked. He said, “we have the capacity, we have the training, I’ve seen it in action, it’s just not being done.”
Then the fireworks started. The controlled explosion came in the form of Malik Cotton. “Cotton like what my ancestors picked,” he said when spelling his name for the record. Malik Cotton walked into that room after a 30 minute break and exposed one of (he did not refer to her except as “Little Miss Sitting Over Here”) the Senators sitting on the panel for, during the break, saying to one of her colleagues, “they’ve said it like 30 times,” in a great show of white ignorance. “I see you smiling, and denying,” he said, “I see you and I want you to see me.”
Which brings into perspective the tax issues, how the multitude of negative individual experiences could be tied together and put into context by a group of citizens that are not only supposed to be protected and served by such an institution, but one that they pay for as well. Yardie Lexandros put it simply by saying “stop spending money to harass us.”
The list of demands came from damn near every resident that spoke, it was a long laundry list of items that included but was not limited to “proper and free education, proper methods for accountability for police, release of non-violent offenders from jail, reparations, grants and money to be diverted into the community, end use of property taxes to determine school funding, fundamentally reshape food distribution systems to do more to allow low income households access to community gardens and farms, free and less expensive public transit, safe and affordable housing, the repurposing of empty buildings and non-coercive housing options, wellness resources to be free and available to low income households, transparent policing contracts subject to public rejections, decriminalization of drugs, rapid response networks, survivor-led support groups, and removal qualified immunity and police from all public spaces. You know, the basics.
The debate went way beyond the scope of local police (who aren’t really local, but that’s none of my business), because the issue surrounding Black Lives Matter, being systemic in nature, permeates to every level of our society and all of our institutions.
“Stop playing games with Medicare expansion which we voted for 2 years ago,” said Rogers-Wright. Local activist Jasmine Harris called for “pre-arrest interventions” and called out the injustice of “correctional facilities being the primary providers of mental health care,” a prominent cause and symptom of what she called the “pre-school to prison pipeline.” A claim corroborated by the following speaker, who claimed she had been homeless, been in an abusive home with a mom that worked 16 hour shifts. She told her own story of being misidentified as Special Ed by her school, when what she had was trauma. “This is my reality” she said, before adding “invest in care, not cops.”
“We’re asking you to do something substantial…and radical,” said Harmon, “we want to remove the ability to bring military force upon citizens.” A UNO political science major, Connor Amley, took it a step further: “no office of justice should profit from the administration of public functions.”
The people want the police to “cease and desist using military equipment,” as one resident put it. Only one speaker would use the term “prison-industrial complex” and the words “military-industrial complex” were not used that I saw; curious only in that these two phenomena are inextricably linked to the tune of Billions of dollars in revenue.
“I’m here to join the national call to defund the police state,” said Strong. Yardie Lexandros demanded that “all charges be dropped for arrested protestors, and for no officers from outside the community” to be present in reform.
Multiple people, in various ways using a variety of phrases essentially called for the same thing. It has become known as the “3 D’s:” Defund, Disarm, and Disband. Another version, called 8 to Abolition, has the same end goal of, you guessed it, abolishing the police as we know it.
As an activist in Minneapolis recently told their mayor, “we don’t want no more police.”
“I would not be here if my skin were black,” said Christian Heut, before adding, “change is coming, either make it happen or get out the way because we’re going to make it happen.”
If politicians and the people who “control the purse strings,” as Nathan Zing put it, continue to do nothing…“I’m not remorseful for what’s going to happen,” one woman said.
Another local activist, Jasmine Harris, broke it down for those who still don’t get it. “Justice is made up of systems and sub-systems of covert and overt racism,” she said, “and all of these recommendations, you can’t handle all of them”
Harris addressed the very real fact that when the list of demands reaches such a nauseating length, perhaps it’s time to “start all the way over,” as another woman put it.
LaShawn Wooddard made the solution painfully simple: “stop defending your racist friends and family members.” The simplicity of which is lost on literally hundreds of years of exactly such behavior. Brendan Leahy, the grandson of Gene Leahy, used an analogy. He likened it to a boiling kettle, when you put a lid on that kettle, he said, it pressurizes the water and can make a much more explosive situation.
Many residents pointed to other countries. A Joshua Nelson referenced London’s “largely unarmed force.” Claire Damon noted the over 1,000 deaths per year in America by police as opposed to 36 across our Northern border in Canada. Damon as well as Greg Harris pointed out that excluding the fire department police has more funding than social, healthcare, and education services combined.
As mentioned above, Nathan Zing stood and said, “you control the purse strings, you are paying for an institutionalized, oppressive system.”
Another resident, Melinda Walsh, stated that “37.9% of the city’s budget goes to police.”
This is what a system looks like, this is what is meant by the word ‘systemic.’ It’s a prison industrial complex, fed by a military industrial complex, that draws on an immoral and illegal system of pipelines that reach into our homes and schools. As long as the government is reaching into our lives, perhaps they could reach for an actual problem, such as racism. “It’s against your beliefs,” cried Brendan Leahy, no matter your politics. It’s not small government, and it’s certainly not “law and order.” It’s chaos fueled by fear and terror, and as long as we’re calling things what they are, why stop there?
Then Dr Jenny Hyneman took the stage, in what Senator Lathrop called “a show.” The cousin of Jake Gardner, Dr. Hyneman stated the obvious to everyday people, “social movements do not come out of thin air.”
“These are the results of generations of violence,” she said, “my family has a long history of assault charges and along history of racism. And you [Senators/panel] need to move from this place of listening and thinking, to action. This movement is happening in response to us. My family did this, I want us to be accountable. I want you all to be accountable.”
Dr. Hyneman was followed by Michaela Chambers who argued for better avenues and broke down the allocation of tax dollars, after which she ended by saying “we are all aware, I hope you are aware as well.”
In 1966, Ernie continued the quote from the beginning of the article with this: “I can’t solve the problem. You guys pull the strings that close schools, you guys draw the lines that keep our kids restricted to the ghetto, you guys write up the restrictive covenants that keep us out of houses. So its up to you to talk to your brothers, and your sisters and persuade them that they have a responsibility. We have assumed ours for over 400 years, and we’re tired of this kind of stuff now. We’re not going to suffer patiently anymore, no more turning the other cheek, no more blessing our enemies, no more praying for those who despitefully use us. We’re gonna show you that we’ve learned the lessons you’ve taught us, we’ve studied your history, and you did not take over this country by saying we shall overcome, you did not gain control of the world like you have it now by dealing fairly with the man and keeping your word. You’re treaty breakers, you’re liars, you’re thieves, you rape entire continents and races of people, then you wonder why these very people don’t have any confidence and trust in you. Your religion means nothing, your law is a farce, and we see it everyday.”
In 2020, around the time Lathrop attempted to start to wrap up, the honorable Senator Ernie Chambers stood to speak. “I’m glad we had this hearing,” he said, “I’m so angry I might just burst.” Senator Chambers went on at great length about all of the problems that had been discussed, calling cops and politicians “cowardly rats” and “thugs.” He outlined a smear campaign he said was orchestrated by Governor Ricketts, Jean Stothert, Jeff Fortenberry (at the national level), as well as the police Chief Todd Schmaderer, and a corrupt Police Union.
“You think I’d apologize to a bunch of white cops?” he asked, “I don’t fear the police. I have a longer arrest record than Jesse James. I listened to them beat their gums, they ganged up on me like the Klu Klux Klan.”
Chambers pulled no punches, describing the “sanctimoniousness of police,” and how “they have been taught and trained to lie.” At which point he compares lying cops and politicians to Donald Trump and his endless list of (documented) lies. “I say what I say in front of everybody,” he said, adding some choice descriptors such as “pompous and deranged,” before settling on the “sub-system” of racism before him.
“To my colleagues,” he was now preaching with the energy and aura of experience, “I’ve put up with a lot…for 46 years, and I am certainly not tucking my tail.”
In conclusion, the hearing ended on a positive note, with closing arguments throughout the day sounding like “give a hand up instead of a foot down,” by Shawn Lowary.
“I don’t want a piece of the American Pie because you best believe it’s bitter,” LaShawn Wooddard said. Nathan Johnson called for what needs to be “more than a PR friendly band-aid fix,” and to address what only one man said: “basic human rights.” I suppose such a glaring violation would go unnoticed when it goes on for so long. Yet, Ernie Chambers is 82 years old. Would you really be able to tell that there is a difference of 54 years between some of his words quoted in this article if I had not told you outright?
Boys Town grad Lavonte Moore brought a much-needed message of love after an agitated Ernie Chambers rant. Then, a little girl named Eleanor gave a lesson about ethics and morality to sitting state Senators from the pages of a fuzzy rainbow notebook.
“I will never trust you guys again,” said Cole Christensen. When speaking of the task ahead of lawmakers, Nathan Zing told them, “I do not envy you.”
To ask these good people who suffer, who grieve, who march, and who came out to speak on the public record yesterday to accept our current reality, you are effectively asking them to sit around and wait until tragedy strikes them. Their voices matter, Black Lives Matter, and the truth matters. Over 100 people, over the course of 8 hours, told you. Here’s rests a record of what that room felt like, to me.
